Nudity as a tactic (why I won't attend Saturday's protest)

April 30, 2009

There is a protest scheduled for Saturday in San Jose, organized by PETA

to protest the skinning of snakes and lizards for making shoes and other

products. This protest is part of a tour of protests conducted by PETA.

Previous protests in this tour have featured actress/model Meggan

Anderson, the winner of PETA's " I'm Too Sexy for Leather " online photo

contest. In these protests, Ms. Anderson's body is displayed nearly

nude, painted in a snakeskin pattern. Ms. Anderson's Twitter page

refers to this tour as " PETA's Naked Snake Tour " .

PETA's material promoting the tour describes Ms. Anderson's snake

character as " sexy " . Here are some excerpts from press coverage:

o_Get_Over_Our_Skins displays the sub-title " Naked model baits boys into

caring about animals " .

lows-downtown/ has the headline " Semi-nude PETA protest briefly slows

downtown Redding traffic " .

Our movement is often viewed and slandered as being a pack of

leftists/hippies. This stereotype causes many minds to automatically

click to a closed position when approached by a pro-animal pitch. As a

movement, we need to be more careful to avoid contributing to that

stereotype.

My employer has policies that prohibit sexual harassment; these policies

deem as sexual harassment the displaying of sexually suggestive objects

or pictures, cartoons, or posters. If I were to display a photograph of

a near-nude, sexy model in my workplace, I would be subject to penalties

up to and including termination. I support these policies as designed

to protect employees from sexual objectification and from demeaning and

degrading situations.

I fully support the purpose of Saturday's protest. However, I do not

wish to be associated with nudity as a protest tactic. Therefore, I

will not attend Saturday's protest.

-- Mike Sage

wd/

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